The NASCAR Next Gen car moving to a single lug seems to become a hot topic any time that the car is discussed and I feel like I have a unique view on it as someone that cover the series while also having pitted cars with a single lug in other series.

From a technical perspective, the single lug makes sense based on the information released by NASCAR and the fact that aluminum wheels with a single lug are more durable than those with five lugs in this scenario.

The single lug aluminum wheels are also likely to last longer than five lug aluminum wheels which should reduce costs since they won't have to be replaced as often and will meet the ultimate goal of reducing costs overall for this car.

The street car relevancy in this situation is solely tied to the wheels looking like and being sized to compare to what's available on the street cars. While the single nut can be found on some high end street cars, that is not the part that should be tied to street cars.

With all of that said, as a professional that does pit stops and a fan of racing I can say that I completely understand why many are against the change from five lugs to one because it is such a unique element in racing that really isn't found in that form elsewhere.

The NASCAR pit stop has been so perfected over time and the professionals that do these stops are unlike any others which just makes it cool to look at when you consider the speed at which they move and how quickly they make the change and the noises that come along with it.

So while I understand the change and can explain it from a technical perspective, I will miss seeing the 5-lug changes in the Cup series as someone that looks up to what these people do and just a fan of seeing what happens on pit road.

While the length of pit stops may not change dramatically there might some writing on the wall about the future of professional pit crews and how that works with the planned cost savings so we may see changes to how fueling is controlled as well. https://twitter.com/edgerwood/status/1328700674608160768?s=20

If fueling or jacking changes are implemented at some point, we could see a change where NASCAR could look to the old days or the direction of IMSA and put rules in place that would see a move away from professional pit crews to mechanics doing the stops.

TLDR: Change is coming, there is a technical reason for but also a reason to disagree with it from a competition standpoint. Sorry I didn't have any hot takes.